Alley and Court both exist as surnames, but the former is for a'lee, i.e. Atlee (Chapter XII), and the latter is from court in the sense of mansion, country house. The curious spelling Caught may be seen over a shop in Chiswick. Rowe (Chapter I) sometimes means row of houses, but in Townroe the second element is identical with Wray (Chapter XIII). Cosway, Cossey, is from causeway, Fr. chaussee; and Twitchers, Twitchell represent dialect words used of a narrow passage and connected with the Mid. English verb twiselen, to fork, or divide; Twiss must be of similar origin, for we find Robert del twysse in 1367. Cf. Birtwistle and Entwistle. With the above may be classed the west-country Shute, a narrow street; Vennell, a north-country word for alley, Fr. venelle, dim. of Lat. versa, vein; Wynd, a court, also a north-country word, probably from the verb wind, to twist; and the cognate Went, a passage-- "Thorugh a goter, by a prive wente." (Troilus and Criseyde, iii. 788.) WATER Names derived from artificial watercourses are Channell, now replaced as a common noun by the learned form canal; Condy or Cundy, for the earlier Cunditt, conduit; Gott, cognate with gut, used in Yorkshire for the channel from a mill-dam, and in Lincolnshire for a water-drain on the coast; Lade, Leete, connected with the verb to lead; and sometimes Shore (Chapter XII), which was my grandfather's pronunciation of sewer. From weir, lit. a protection, precaution, cognate with beware and Ger. wehren, to protect, we have not only Weir, but also Ware, Warr, Wear, and the more pretentious Delawarr. The latter name passed from an Earl Delawarr to a region in North America, and thus to Fenimore Cooper's noble red men. But this group of names must sometimes be referred to the Domesday wars, an outlying potion of a manor. Lock is more often a land name, to be classed with Hatch (Chapter XIII), but was also used of a water-gate. Key was once the usual spelling of quay. The curious name Keylock is a perversion of Kellogg, Mid. Eng. Kill-hog. Port seldom belongs here, as the Mid. English is almost always de la Porte, i.e. Gates. From well we have a very large number of compounds, e.g. Cauldwell (cold), Halliwell, the variants of which, Holliwell, Hollowell, probably all represent Mid. Eng. hali, holy. Here belongs also Winch, from the device used for drawing water from deep wells. BUILDINGS